You think you are giving a nervous client the full picture when you acknowledge their worry and then explain the other side of it. The article says one word in that sentence deletes the acknowledgment you just made, and the replacement is three letters long.
The piece is about clients getting cold feet near the finish line, and it argues the instinct to push harder is exactly what loses them. It sorts every cold-feet worry into two buckets: macro fears about the world, like rates, the economy, or geopolitical conflict, which you cannot fix and should not argue with, and deal-specific fears about the property or the terms, like a low appraisal or inspection results.
Step one is to make the client feel heard rather than to solve anything. The words: "Hey, totally makes sense. This is a big decision. Let's talk through this and see what's best for you." Jumping straight to why they should still move forward, it says, "reeks of commission breath and does nothing to build trust."
Then it presents options. "The framework I use is called 1-3-1" and it is three items: one problem, three options, one question. On a house-specific worry that means offering an inspection request, accepting the home in its current condition, or walking away entirely, then asking "Which one of those is going to be easier for you?" And after that: "Then you stop talking."
The smallest change in the whole piece is a single word, and the word is but. The article says to stop using it, because "everything before it gets erased in the listener's mind." The swap, side by side: "We could wait, but here's the problem with that" becomes "We could wait, and here's what that looks like." As it puts it, "It keeps the conversation collaborative instead of argumentative."
It also says the uncomfortable part out loud: "sometimes the best thing you can do for a client is tell them to walk away." "It's one thing to lose a deal. It's another to lose the client."
“Stop using the word “but.” When you say it, everything before it gets erased in the listener’s mind.”
Read your last three follow-up messages and count the buts. Most agents put one in nearly every sentence where they are handling a concern, and each one quietly cancels the sympathy in front of it. The client hears the second half only, which is why I hear you, but lands as an argument no matter how warmly you say it.
The swap is free and you can make it today. The harder half of the article is why it works at all: you can only tell a client it is fine to walk away when you are not depending on that one deal. The piece is direct that agents who handle cold feet badly are usually running two or three active clients, and the client can feel it.